Q&A: Buridan’s Donkey, Determinism, and Evolution
Buridan’s Donkey, Determinism, and Evolution
Question
Hello Rabbi,
- Regarding the question of Buridan’s donkey, does the answer that proposes a lottery solve the problem? It seems to me that it does not, because even if we choose a lottery, whatever it may be, we would still need to choose, by free choice, what each side stands for, and in general we would not even be able to begin proposing the sides, since we could not consciously choose the right side over the left side, and so on.
My question is whether you accept this objection to the lottery proposal, and whether you think that in the end there is a solution to this question even by means of free choice. - According to your definition, deterministic heretics and the like live with an internal contradiction, because in the end they live according to a scale of values, and therefore in truth they choose to live that way, except that they live without awareness of it. After much reflection on these remarks of yours, I reached a somewhat different conclusion. It seems to me that there are many people, myself included, who from time to time live with an internal contradiction, and as you wrote about the topic of the collapse of the will at the moment of sin: at that moment, I sin because I consciously choose, by free choice, not to do a positive act or not to refrain from a negative act. (Accordingly, Maharal’s definition is understandable, that positive commandments and prohibitions are boundaries of deviation from uprightness, from the general middle path; in this respect there is no difference in severity between a positive commandment and a prohibition.)
Therefore, one can place on the sinner the specific blame for the sin. In the same way, I think determinists deserve the same kind of parallel evaluation. And so I arrive at the following conclusion: to hold and try to live by determinism, even partially, is a mistake. A mistake so severe that it is a descent from the form of a human being to the form of an animal, something almost impossible to define in words, and from here I come to 3. - Following thoughts about evolution, and after again reading some of your writings, I want to share with you the following conclusion. The improbability of the coming-into-being of the world and everything in it leads to the simple conclusion that there is an intentional Creator. But the Creator gave free choice to everything, and I conclude that we need to discuss free choice according to the definition of the term species or kind, and the nature of free choice, in its more correct definition, is something we do not grasp. According to this, every living creature has some free choice, because it chooses to be alive. I do not know a sufficiently good explanation for how the transition occurred between creation and the beginning of the formation of life (however we define it), beyond the fact that all life has free choice to live.
I add to this, in order to avoid unnecessary difficulties, that we are capable of grasping only positive values, and therefore concepts like death (not living) or lack of free choice are paradoxes that are incomprehensible to us and cannot be grasped by human consciousness.
The combination of the two claims (evolution and positive thinking) leads me to the conclusion that a determinist, if pursued to infinity, should have reverted to the form of an animal (and perhaps that really would have happened, if I did not again need your model of contradictions; on that same issue, I think that instincts are a model of free choices that we made in the past. I also think that when parents choose something for their children, or a way of life for them, when the children do not have free choice, the result of the act with regard to the children is an act of free choice and not a deterministic act. In fact, I saw some YouTube video from which I inferred that before the Ice Age creatures lived for a very long time; perhaps there was a process in which living creatures became wise enough to choose that multiplication was preferable to preserving that same life-form). I hope this does not sound like a joke or mysticism. But this is what happens to me when I do 1+1.
On all these topics, which seem to me complex, I would be glad to hear your broad opinion.
Answer
- I did not understand the proposal or the claim against it. Regarding the donkey, see column 196.
- I did not understand your claim. Are you saying that they deliberately choose a deterministic outlook even though they consciously know that it is not true? That seems odd to me.
- I did not understand a word.
Discussion on Answer
1. I understand. Agreed. There is a philosophical question here: what if he hands over his decision to another person, who will decide right or left. He does not need to break the symmetry. [Though if we assume the whole world is symmetrical, then the other person also might not be able to decide.]
2. I did not say that they deliberately choose determinism. Not at all. I definitely believe them that this is what they think. They do not notice that their behavior indicates a different underlying assumption.
2. If so, what is the difference between an apostate out of appetite and an apostate out of spite? In the end both of them make an intellectual mistake. The apostate out of appetite chooses to engage in lusts or continue engaging in them. And exactly like him, the apostate out of spite is occupied with desire because he makes an intellectual mistake. They are both “intentional sinners” of a different kind, to the best of my understanding. The apostate out of spite is, overall, simply more intelligent on our scale—that is, he has a higher IQ than average.
What they have in common is that there is a desire or some other screen that they are aware of, because otherwise they would not be responsible for their actions, and they choose to be drawn after it.
According to your approach, there is some huge and, to my mind, incomprehensible split personality in the personalities of determinists, or at least in some of them.
In this context I would be glad if you could explain the words of the Sages: “He recognizes his Creator and rebels against Him.”
2. It is not clear to me what is unclear. Neither of them is mistaken; rather, they intentionally decide wrongly: out of appetite means because of the inclination, and out of spite means in order to anger and rebel.
“He recognizes his Creator and rebels against Him” is a kind of apostate out of spite. What needs explaining here?
2. That the apostate out of spite is supposed to be smarter than the apostate out of appetite, who is just dragged along by his desire. And if he is smarter, then he understands that you cannot really anger God—at most, society.
But you still have not explained how they commit this sin. I read the column about free choice from Sukkot. How would you apply your remarks here? I am trying to argue that apostates and determinists are neither coerced nor unintentional sinners, and if so they are intentional in some respect.
As for “he recognizes his Creator and rebels against Him,” if we interpret this saying according to Plato, it would not be clear, because if he recognizes his Creator he would not be able to rebel against Him. A sign that both kinds of apostate made an intellectual mistake, or an error in rational judgment.
I am unable to follow your arguments (in my opinion I already answered everything). If you want to keep clarifying, I suggest you raise them one by one and explain a bit what you mean.
2. You explained that sin is committed when a person yields to causality, to desires, like a little ball rolling along. I agree with that explanation in general. Based on that explanation, I want to try to explain how an intellectual sin is carried out, if we assume that being a determinist is a sin, or at least an intellectual error, and in it the person is not coerced.
Here enters the discussion about the two kinds of apostates. Both of them, in the end, make an intellectual mistake, according to my analysis. And as a general implication, every person who sins first of all gives in intellectually. And someone coerced is, after all, not considered a sinner.
If I assume there is no determinism at all, then I would not define sin as being dragged after causality, but as making an incorrect choice, with poorer rational considerations. Those considerations—like desires, fear, or whatever reason caused the person to do what he did—are completely rational at their root. The mistake is departing from the middle path, being overly dragged after desires or deficiency, for example.
According to this, the apostate out of spite and the apostate out of appetite both make a similar but different intellectual mistake. Both are apostates with regard to the transgression, but their motives are a bit different: the apostate out of spite carried out some intellectual inquiry and stopped, whereas the apostate out of appetite did not carry out intellectual inquiry. “Intellectual inquiry” is a broad term.
I believe that many idealistic heretics who stress that the great meaning of life is bodily life live in contradiction with their philosophical inquiry into life’s true meaning, and simply are not aware that they surrendered to their own desires. Surrendered according to the definition I gave above, based on the definition of the middle path.
In this sense, the correct act or the sin is a game with two possibilities; an unintentional sinner is an intentional sinner for the sake of the discussion (maybe one could compare him to an apostate out of appetite; I have not thought that through enough).
But from everything said up to this point, at least it is clear that being a determinist, from the perspective of an anti-determinist, involves a deliberate, conscious mistake.
I tried to explain more clearly. I would be glad for your response.
I am sorry, but I have completely lost you. Everything here is simple and clear, and I do not understand the complication. Everything I do understand in your words I do not agree with, and the rest I do not understand.
I make the following claims:
1. A person who is mistaken in his thinking is coerced.
2. A person who is drawn after his desires is not coerced (unless it is an impulse that cannot be overcome).
3. It is possible that a person is drawn after his desires and because of that adopts some intellectual position. In such a case he is of course sinning.
That is all. Beyond this I do not see what there is to discuss. Which of these three do you disagree with?
1. I disagree. What is the intellect for? A person is obligated to investigate the truth. Only if under certain circumstances there was no possibility that he could be right, only then is he coerced.
2. Agreed.
3. Also agreed.
I argued 2 and 3 above (from “I believe”). Could you elaborate on what other things you disagreed with?
1. He investigated, and this is his conclusion. A person can make a mistake.
Maybe that is our disagreement. I do not see any point in continuing.
1. I saw the column. My question is this: a person in a theoretical Buridan situation who chooses a lottery, say a coin toss for the sake of the discussion—can he thereby solve the problem? I think not, because he will not be able to define the two sides of the coin, since at the moment of choosing the definition the Buridan question reappears in the mind: will heads be right or left? Why would a person be able to decide that? And if we are not built in a Buridan-style symmetrical way, then I am asking about the specific Buridan person in this specific situation—would a lottery help? It seems to me not.
2. Of course they choose deliberately; you also claim this, but as I understand it you add, in your terms, that they have a barrier that prevents them from recognizing that they themselves behave in a way that shows that they and human beings have free choice.
3. I will wait with 3 for now.